Uri Caine - Mahler: The Drummer Boy

One hundred years ago the Austrian, Jewish-Catholic musician Gustav Mahler dies.

No other contemporary composer has looked as intensively as Uri Caine into Mahlers œuvre. In Gustav Mahler's music resounds the Fin de Siècle with symphonies in terrific orchestrations, military marches, Austrian dances, songs and Jewish melodies. Now, one hundred years later, Caine adapts with his knowledge of the decline of the Danube Monarchy, of the Nazi time and the Holocaust, of the developments and origins of contemporary music and jazz the compositions of Gustav Mahler. Caine creates a master piece.

The album »The Drummer Boy« begins with the rhythm in 3/4 of „Rhinelegend“ introducing the wonderful actor and singer Josef Bierbichler – followed by „Kindertotenlieder“, the famous „Adagietto“ from the 5th Symphony and among other highlights „Two Blue Eyes“ with the Jewish cantor Aaron Bensoussan, the American poet Shulamith Wechter Caine (Uri Caine’s mother) and with an outstanding piano solo by Uri Caine himself. All the adaptations come from different creative periods of the last 15 years.

Uri Caine built up with these outstanding works his international reputation. The big success of »Urlicht/Primal Light« after Gustav Mahler is the beginning of his very special canon. Uri Caine adapts compositions by Bach, Schumann, Beethoven and Wagner, writes compositions for the renowned Arditti String Quartet, creates with Bedrock a fusion of Drum 'n' Bass, post-bop, electric music and improvisation and releases in 2011 an acoustic jazz piano trio album with his own pieces, which receives wide attention by the press and audiences.